We’ve been to this branch at Paragon (Orchard Road) specializing in Peking duck a few times but food’s just too tasty and with big groups, it’s always hard to keep snapping pictures. But now, we’ll share our latest experience with you.

There were 8 of us and we had 7 dishes, well 8 to be exact as we were celebrating a birthday and in addition to tip top attentive service, we got complimentary birthday buns (寿桃)!

To start off the meal, we were served the roast pork (烧肉). Each serve was $12 and came with 9 little pieces with crunchy fragrant peanuts. This dish was so good, we ordered double portion. The skin was so crispy and fragrant, there was just enough fats to ensure the juiciness of the meat wasn’t compromised. The savory taste of each piece was just satisfying!

Next up, the black chicken fish maw soup with lingering fragrance we smelled when we walked into the restaurant… We knew we had to order. At $100 a serve (enough for 8) there were some lean pork which were quite dry as their flavor went into the soup, black chicken pieces which are nutritious, cooked till the bones were powdery, and soft pieces of fish maw. The soup was so delicious, I could not resist a second helping.

Then the star dish of the night was served with a chef slicing up the duck in front of us. The Peking duck is something we can order beforehand. The reservation staff asked if I would like to order a duck, and of course I said YES please! We were asked to start with the skin. Fat free almost, just the very top crispy part of the skin and we were supposed to eat them dip with some sugar. Then the crepe wrap was served with some cucumber and julienned spring onions with the sliced up duck meat. We would take a piece of crepe, top with some cucumber, spring onion, duck meat, sweet sauce and wrap it up before we eat them (no photos on this process, sorry)

Hong Kong kailan (芥蓝) or Chinese broccoli was simply stir fried with garlic ($36 for a large portion) but the garlic bits were huge… Would have been good if they were not so noticeable. The kailan was very crunchy so we enjoyed it anyway.

The egg white and crab meat dish was simple yet flavorful ($42 for a medium portion). It’s healthy too as its full of protein!

As it was a birthday celebration, we cannot go without a longevity noodle. We went for braised eefu noodles with yellow chives (韭黄) and straw mushrooms ($24 for medium portion). The noodles were executed perfectly as they were really springy (QQ)! And though this dish sounds plain, it was delicious and the whole serving which was quite big was wiped out when we were stuffed with the dishes before this!

We liked that their birthday buns did not have much coloring. The lotus seed paste was not too sweet and served steaming hot.

Overall, we enjoyed the dinner. For 8, we paid $500 which was a little over $60 per pax. Some may think it’s expensive as we did not order live seafood or any luxurious items but for the food quality, top service and ambience, we think it’s worth it.